Digital Commons Network^™

The Leading Edge, January 28, 2014, Lindenwood University

The Legacy (2007-2018)

The Leading Edge was an attempt at a magazine version by the student newspaper of Lindenwood University. It lasted for a single issue.

Ua12/2/1 College Heights Herald, Vol. 89, No. 28, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

WKU campus newspaper reporting campus, athletic and Bowling Green, Kentucky news.

• Rogers, Shelby. WKU Facing $1.8 Million Budget Cut
• Rogers, Shelby. Regents Tackle Jeff Brohm Contract & Budget Cuts in Friday Meeting
• Parker, Jacob. Ordinance Allows Purchase of Alcohol on Sunday
• Crumbie, Trey. DSU Renovation Reaches Final Phase, Opening in August – Downing University Center
• Mudd, Aaron. WKU Offers Scholarships at Study Abroad Fair
• Vogt, Darren. Editorial Cartoon Big Red Can’t Reach Higher Education
• Not So Accessible: State Education Should Be Accessible to Potential Students
• Hunton, Ryan. Caring for Our Health Is a Challenge That Connects Us
• Crumbie, Trey. North …

Prospectus, January 22, 2014, Mace Mackiewicz, Jojo Rhinehart, Alex Wallner, Ted Setterlund

Prospectus 2014

NEW LAWS TO KEEP IN MIND IN 2014, Yale Study Identifies Gene Mutation as a Cause of Tourette's, College Recruiters Give Low-Income Public Campuses Fewer Visits, Tomb of Preveiously Unknown Pharaoh Found, As Economy Heals, Thriftness Thrives, Public Safety Gives Students Advice on New Laws, Back to the Drawing Board on 'Net Neutrality' Rules, Does a College Degree Lead to Good Jobs and Happiness? Or to Debt and Regret?, Shaking the Sands of Time, Men's Basketball Remain Undefeated, How Do You Feel About Colorado Legalizing Recreational Marijuana?

"What Does This Graph Mean?" Formative Assessment With Science Inquiry To Improve Data Analysis, Andrea Dawn Leech

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated the use of formative assessment to improve three specific data analysis skills within the context of a high school chemistry class: graph interpretation, pattern recognition, and making conclusions based on data. Students need to be able to collect data, analyze that data, and produce accurate scientific explanations (NRC, 2011) if they want to be ready for college and careers after high school. This mixed methods study, performed in a high school chemistry classroom, investigated the impact of the formative assessment process on data analysis skills that require higher order thinking. We hypothesized that the use of evaluative …

Peer Conversations About Inter-Racial And Inter-Ethnic Friendships, Lana Lee Buckholz

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to understand how early adolescents talk about cross-racial and cross-ethnic friendships. Gordon Allport's intergroup contact theory provided the framework for studying the elements needed for inter-racial and inter-ethnic friendship formation. Qualitative data were drawn from four separately recorded peer group conversations. Participants (n=18) were recruited from Parrish Middle School in Salem, Oregon. Patterns that emerged from the data were sorted, categorized and identified according to the tenets of intergroup contact theory or extensions of intergroup contact theory. Analysis also looked at the use of metaphors and storytelling among adolescents. Results showed that while intergroup …

The Guardian, January 15, 2014, Wright State University Student Body

The Guardian Student Newspaper

Twelve page issue of The Guardian, the official student-run newspaper for Wright State University. The Guardian has been published regularly since March of 1965.

Examining The Theoretical Consequences Of A Post-Feminist Media Culture, Jedidiah N. Bailey

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Since the early 1990s, feminist scholars have declared that a post-feminist media culture has arisen throughout the Westernized world to attack the ideas and values promoted by feminists and the second-wave feminist movement that became established in the late 1960s and 70s. Consequently, this study is designed to gauge the influence that these media have in shaping the attitudes of young college women (in the 18-25 year old demographic) toward feminism and key women‟s rights issues. In order to better understand whether post-feminist media are able to detract support from the feminist movement, this study attempts to quantify the relationship …

Discourse Analysis Of Interpersonal Features In Esl And Jsl Textbooks, Yukina Takahira

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Textbooks play an important role in language classrooms. They serve as models for language use in a target community and significantly influence language learners in their development of language use and perceptions of the target community. In traditional grammar teaching, teachers seldom look into linguistic choices at the discourse level and mainly use language textbooks to focus on grammatical accuracy at the sentence level. Language cannot be divorced from the context and culture of its use; contextual and cultural aspects of language are inherent in discourse. Language textbooks provide not only the needed linguistic resources, but also reflect the interpersonal …

Telling The Story Of Stepfamily Beginnings: The Relationship Between Young-Adult Stepchildren’S Stepfamily Origin Stories And Their Satisfaction With The Stepfamily, Jody Koenig Kellas, Leslie Baxter, Cassandra Leclair-Underberg, Matthew Thatcher, Tracy Routsong, Emily Lamb Normand, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The current study adopts a narrative perspective in examining the content of 80 stepchildren’s stepfamily origin stories. Results reveal five types of stepfamily origin stories: Sudden, Dark-sided, Ambivalent, Idealized, and Incremental. Results support the hypothesis that story type would predict differences in family satisfaction; stepchildren who described their stepfamily origins as Idealized were more satisfied than those whose origins were Dark-sided or Sudden. Overall, participants framed their stepfamily identity more positively when their stepfamily beginnings were characterized by closeness, friendship, and even expected ups and downs, rather than when they were left out of the process of negotiating …

Building Trust, Establishing Credibility, And Communicating Fire Issues With The Public, Josh Mcdaniel

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

With more people than ever living in the vicinity of the wildland-urban interface, communicating wildland fire management activities and building trust with the public is paramount for safety. Although the time and resources it takes to build and maintain the public’s trust may seem daunting, it may be one of the most important factors determining the long-term viability of a fire management program. Trust is built over time through personal relationships with citizens and communities and also by demonstrating competence and establishing credibility. When trust and confidence have been established, managers can enjoy strong support of fire and fuels management …

The Definition Of Insanity: Dialectically Communicating Student Athlete Identity And Structure In Collegiate Sport Culture, Marissa Metala Yandall

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Albert Einstein famously stated that the definition of insanity is to continue to go about a process in a similar manner while expecting different results. This is the current state of collegiate athletics. Reformers and community members have high hopes for meaningful change in light of the numerous and ongoing issues of impropriety and scandal that continue to grace the sports page in daily current events. Yet, in spite of nearly one hundred years of reform efforts, the structure of collegiate sport has changed very little. How can we expect a change in the culture without making concentrated effort to …

Celebration, Resistance, And Change: Queer Gender Performers Of Color As Public Pedagogues, Krishna Pattisapu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research project expands academic understandings of queer of color subjectivity through the critical investigation of queer gender performance and its pedagogical potential for queer communities. With queer theories of color, critical communication pedagogy, and public pedagogy theories providing support, I utilize qualitative interviews fore-fronting poetic transcription of personal narratives in order to explore how queer gender performers of color engage in intersectional queer negotiations of identities and provide new possibilities for the everyday performance of queer identities. I call upon existing scholarship in queer gender performance in order to prove the centrality of such performances to queer social life, …

Ua12/2/2 2014 Talisman: Reckoning, Part Ii, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

2014 Talisman yearbook.

• Hutchins, Seth. A Cut Above – Chris Page, Barbers
• Rogers, Shelby. Out with the Old – Thompson Science Complex
• Melcher, Jaclyn. East Meets Western – Shima Alessa, Saudi Arabia, International Students
• Swanson, Kayla. Deep End: Tim Slattery – Swimming
• Swanson, Kayla. Tackling Time: Jim Meyer – Football
• Swanson, Kayla. Beyond the Basket: Kami Howard – Basketball, Class of 1986
• Moster, Brittany. Right Kind of Writing – Walker Rutledge, English
• Smith, Mary-Kate. A Bug’s Life – Keith Philips, Biology
• Kirz, Lindsay. Honors with Par – April Butler, Golf
• Belknap, Abby. Setting the Tone – Greek Week, Spring Sing …

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Chinese College Students’ Self-Presentation On Social Networking Sites, Qinghua Yang, Zongchao Li

Faculty Publications

Social media have provided new means of self-presentation. Because individuals are able to post notes, pictures, and videos, social media users can construct their personal images on social networking sites (SNSs) and build links with their various communities. This study aims to find out how Chinese college students perceive other users' online self-presentations and how they conduct their own self-presentations through posting pictures on SNSs. Using photo-elicitation as the primary methodology, the authors conducted two.focus groups with male and female participants respectively. With grounded theory as the framework, the qualitative data show gender differences in the attitudes towards extreme self-presentation, …

Cyberbook: An Introduction To Topics In Cyberculture, Western Kentucky Univeristy Department Of Communication

Communication Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Social Support And Affectionate Communication In Animal-Assisted Interventions: Toward A Typology And Rating Scheme Of Handler/Dog Messages, Amy Mccullough

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Animal-assisted interventions (AAIs) are a treatment modality that incorporates a trained animal into a person's healing and learning process in order to benefit the person physically, emotionally and/or socially (Delta Society, 1996). From an interactional perspective, two mechanisms that may contribute to these health benefits are social support and affection exchange. Although there is growing evidence of the health and well-being benefits of AAIs, there remains a need for scientific research to understand more precisely the communicative and behavioral components that constitute a therapeutic intervention involving an animal (Kazdin, 2010). Additionally, there is a need to develop a means of …

Ua68/1/3 Potter College Of Arts & Letters Dean, Assistant Deans, Committees Publications, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Publications created by the Potter College of Arts & Letters Dean, regarding the administration of Potter College.

Contact was a Potter College newsletter about funding opportunities, including grants, for faculty projects and research in the 1970s.

The Forum was a Potter College newsletter for faculty to share information about professional activities and discuss intellectual items of interest in the 1970s.

Potter College Potpourri was a newsletter for faculty, staff, and students that was available in print and online in the late 1990s. It included recent happenings, a frequently asked questions section, and brief departmental updates.

Arts & Letters is the …

Ua19/16/1/1 Hilltopper Baseball 2014 Media Guide, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

2014 baseball media guide produced by WKU Athletic Media Relations, includes athletic records and statistics, photographs, schedule and information regarding opponents.

Virtually Dead: The Extension Of Social Agency To Corpses And The Dead On Facebook, Adam Tucker

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

Facebook and other social networking technologies are become vastly powerful and expansive social forces that are exerting an influence on corpses, the dead, and death communications. Since its invention in 2004, millions of users of Facebook have died, leaving durable profiles subject to the site’s changing regulatory policies and socially present for the network’s living users as well. Because of their ability to enmesh, mutate, and interact with the social interactions of the living—as well as their durability as a site of continuing bonds—Facebook profiles retain social agency consistent with the theories of agency of Alfred Gell (1998) and Bruno …

Tractors And Genres: Knowledge-Making And Identity Formation In An Agricultural Community, Marcy Galbreath

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the history of a small Florida agricultural community over the course of the twentieth century from a rhetorical perspective in order to understand the technological and communicative transitions that governed the development of American agricultural production. By examining archival and oral histories, this research will add to our understandings of how written and oral communications temper the relationships and social situations of an agricultural community, including the knowledge-making and technological adaptation resulting from communications within the community and with outside institutions and entities. Agricultural villages are not isolated entities, but rather sites of multiple rhetorical situations, and …

Strategic Deployments Of ‘Sisterhood’ And Questions Of Solidarity At A Women’S Development Project In Janakpur, Nepal, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Linguistic uses of ‘sisterhood’ provide a window into disparate understandings of relationality among virtual and actual interlocutors in women’s development across vectors of caste, class, ethnicity and nationality. In this essay, I examine the trope of ‘sisterhood’ as it was employed at a women’s development project in Janakpur, Nepal, in the 1990s. I demonstrate that the use of this common signifier of kinship with culturally disparate ‘signifieds’ created a confusion of meaning, and differential readings of the politics of relationality. In my view, ‘sister,’ as used at this project, was a multivalent, strategically deployed, and divergently interpreted term. In particular, …

Happiness In Public Policy, Laura Musikanski

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The happiness movement represents a new paradigm where social, economic, and environmental systems are structured to encourage human well-being in a sustainable environment. Bhutan has adopted Gross National Happiness (GNH) as a way of determining its society’s success in contrast to purely economic goals and the singular use of the gross domestic product indicator. Bhutanese policy promulgation includes use of a GNH screening tool. In the United Kingdom, happiness indicators are being used to collect data and the government is starting to explore their application to policy. The Bhutanese GNH policy screening tool has been adapted for the grassroots activists, …

Graduate Record 2014: Dawg Nation, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

SWOSU Yearbooks

The 2014 Graduate Record was designed by SWOSU students of the Specialized Publications Class in the Communications Department.

Romantic Relationship Stages And Social Networking Sites: Uncertainty Reduction Strategies And Perceived Relational Norms On Facebook, Jesse Fox, Courtney Anderegg

Faculty Publications - Department of Communication and Cinematic Arts

Due to their pervasiveness and unique affordances, social media play a distinct role in the development of modern romantic relationships. This study examines how a social networking site is used for information seeking about a potential or current romantic partner. In a survey, Facebook users (N= 517) were presented with Facebook behaviors categorized as passive (e.g., reading a partner’s profile), active (e.g., ‘‘friending’’ a common third party), or interactive (e.g., commenting on the partner’s wall) uncertainty reduction strategies. Participants reported how normative they perceived these behaviors to be during four possible stages of relationship development (before meeting face-to-face, after meeting …

“Doing Gender” In Public Speaking Education: A Focus Group Analysis Of Biological Sex And Gender Identity In Public Speaking Education, Heather A. Coburn

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

This exploratory focus group analysis examines the ways in which students of a Capstone Communication Studies course (N = 15) perceive factors, such as their communication studies education, biological sex, and gender roles, that have impacted their experiences with Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA) and Self-Perceived Communication Competence (SPCC), as well as the effectiveness of various treatment methods for the reduction of PSA. Three independent student focus groups were conducted – one comprised of biological females (n = 5), one of males (n = 3), and one containing subjects of both biological sexes (n = 7). Herein participants discussed their personal …

I Can't Hear You But I'M Not Sure I'M Going To Tell You: Perceptions Of Stigma And Disclosure For Individuals Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing, Brittany Nicole Lash

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

Communication processes can be affected by stigma – a negative evaluation of an individual’s attributes that discredits or identifies the individual as not normal (Goffman, 1963). One such communicative process that is affected by stigma is disclosure. Disclosure is when individuals share personal information that reveals something not previously known (Charmaz, 1991). One such group of individuals who may be forced to choose between disclosing (to get accommodations or social support) and avoiding stigma (by not disclosing) is individuals with disabilities (Braithwaite, 1991; Charmaz, 1991).

This study focuses on one particular population of individuals with disabilities – those with a …

Increasing Compliance With A Tobacco-Free Policy Via A Campus Campaign, Rachael A. Record

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The implementation of a tobacco-free policy is the leading recommendation among health institutes for reducing the harms associated with tobacco exposure–for both smokers and nonsmokers–on college campuses. Despite the health benefits associated with tobacco-free policies, compliance with these policies remains a serious challenge on college campuses. Interventions aimed at increasing smokers’ willingness to comply with tobacco-free policies are essential for improving public health.

Guided by the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the purpose of this study was to (a) investigate the factors associated with tobacco-free policy compliance among undergraduate students and (b) design and evaluate a theory-based campaign aimed at …

Ua68/1/2 Potter College Of Arts & Letters Dean, Assistant Deans, Committees Events, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by the Potter College of Arts & Letters Dean's Office regarding events, performances, series, conferences, and lectures sponsored or produced by Potter College for faculty, staff, students and general public.

Includes records related to the Cultural Enhancement Committee, Fine Arts Festival, Faculty Lecture Series, Visual & Performing Arts and Kentucky Heritage Project.

Lost In Translation: Statistical Inference In Court, Erica Beecher-Monas

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Shots, Everybody? : British Anti-Smallpox Vaccination And The Development Of Multifaceted Anti-Vaccine Rhetoric On Internet Parenting Forums, Marta B. Bean

Scripps Senior Theses

Vaccination is an important public health measure that can help reduce disease at the population level. Substantial evidence exists that vaccines are safe and effective at reducing the incidence of diseases like pertussis, measles and cervical cancer. However, on Internet parenting forums, parents discuss whether or not vaccination is the right choice for their children. In this thesis, I highlight the historical context of the anti-vaccine movement in mid 19^th century to early 20^th century Victorian Britain in the era of compulsory smallpox vaccination. Vaccination in this time was a very different and more overtly dangerous process, and …